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How to Make a Radchaai Entertainment, Friday

To say that this was going to be interesting felt like a gross understatement, but Amaya was definitely intrigued to see exactly which sort of direction that 'interesting' was about to take.

"Hello, everyone," she said, greeting the students (and the very attentive and shamelessly modded TA) with a nod, "and welcome to 'How to Make a Radchaai Entertainment.' Odds are, if you know what that is already, you know exactly what you're about to be in for, but there's a good chance you have no idea what that means, in which case, I'm going to leave explaining that to one of the two Radchaai in this room to do the actual explaining. Seivarden?"

Seivarden agreed with the interesting.

"You might be familiar with Earth movies. They are similar to Radchaai entertainments, although they usually make less sense, and are occasionally disturbing. A Radchaai entertainment includes drama, political intrigue, romance, adventure." She made a gesture with her hand. "Characters that you love or hate. Epic spaceship battles."

Here she glanced at Amaya to make sure she had noticed that last bit, and to see if she had anything to add to that description.

Oh, she'd noticed, as was indicated on the big grin on her face (which had appeared just in time to swipe away a less pleased expression at a certain other part of the description).

"The spaceship battles," she added, in a sort of whisper toward the students that was obviously intended to not be much of a whisper at all, "are the best parts."

"Depending on your taste," Seivarden added. "As we're going to make a whole entertainment, we're going to need the other parts too."

"Of course," Amaya agreed with a nod. "And those boring parts just make the good parts that much better! You'll see what we mean; today, we're going to watch a good example, one that has a little bit of everything you'd expect from a good Radchaai entertainment. And, in the following classes, we'll be slowly putting together our own: characters, plot, costuming and sets, and special effects, before we put it all together for the final project."

With two people who had never made a movie before in their lives. One of whom only even knew of movies once she got here. But they were very, very passionate about movies. For some reason.

"Also," Amaya added, with a nod and a statement that was about to unintentionally kill their TA before they even got things started, "we're lucky to have another Radchaai on hand as our TA to help with the finer details, being Radchaai herself, so hopefully Tisarwat's expertise can be put to good use, as well."

Seivarden smiled at Tisarwat, and was a little relieved to have someone else on board whom she was sure didn't mind things that weren't explosions.

"We have a few exciting weeks ahead of us," she said. "So let's get started with watching a good example."

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Gloves if you got 'em!

Wayne

Ulysses Zane

Tahani al-Jamil

Just don't ask the teachers about their experience with making entertainments. They do have experience with watching them, and a lot of enthusiasm.

"So," Seivarden said. "Let's know a bit about you. Names, where you're from, any experience with making entertainments. Have you done any acting, writing or scenography? And of course: Do you have a favourite entertainment? Or movie, or whatever you call it where you're from."

"Name's Wayne," Wayne offered, when it finally came around to him, though the expression of mild confusion and concern didn't seem to leave his face at all, and it looked a bit like it had gotten comfortable, taken off its shoes, and was plannin' to stick around fer a bit. "Don't really, uh....don't really do much acting...weren't allowed to watch much TV as a kid, neither, so I'm still catchin' up a bit. But I'm a fan so far of pert'near anything with Kevin Costner, realleh."

Yes. Even ~~Waterworld~~Aquaplanet. And don't even get him started about ~~The Postman~~The Mailman.

Seivarden, who obviously knew didn't know who Kevin Costner was, said:

"And who is that?"

Just to point out that Wayne couldn't just assume people would know.

Look, Wayne wasn't the one up there, tryin' to teach a class about makin' an entertaining movie, and then claiming to not even know who Kevin Fuckin' Costner was, now, was he?

Which meant Seivarden was going to earn herself one furrowed and one lifted brow for a good long second before he said, "Why doncha go rent yerself a copy of ~~Dances With Wolves~~Prances with Puppers and figgur it ouwt fer yerself, there, big shoots."

She'd be doing herself a favor if she, that was fer damn sure!

Suddenly you were on the list of annoying students, Wayne.

"I'm sure it's terribly exciting," Seivarden said sarcastically. "Hopefully you'll like today's entertainment too."

A position that was probably not going to waver much as the semester went on, either.

"Guess we'll wait an' see," said Wayne, who felt there was already far too much movie-watchin' and sittin' going on in this school as it was, but he figured if he just got through this first lesson, they'd be on to actually doin' stuff here, soon enough, though he still wasn't entirely sure what that doin' stuff was gonna entail.

"I'm Ulysses, I'm from... the States --" He didn't have to get more specific than that, right? Where he was actually from was boring. "-- and I've helped a few friends make like Youtube videos and stuff, if that counts? And I don't have much experience, but I'm kinda maybe thinking of going to college for an acting degree so I'm, like, definitely into that."

Then he shrugged.

"And I don't really have a favorite movie? I don't know, I think that kinda changes too often so I can't really pick one."

"Oh, it doesn't have to be your favourite," Seivarden said. "Just to give is an idea what you usually watch."

"I kinda watch everything," Ulysses offered. "But for something I actually like? I don't know, just any decent artsy indie flick, I guess."

He was in a slightly pretentious phase he was not going to be growing out of for at least the next decade or so.

Seivarden had no idea what that meant, so she just said:

"Well, hopefully you'll enjoy this entertainment."

"I'm Tahani al-Jamil, and I can paint, sing, play musical instruments, and do some acting."

Just not as well as her sister Kamilah. Obviously.

"I love a good romantic comedy," she sighed.

"All that will be very useful," Seivarden said, smiling. "And I'm sure we can fit some romantic comedy in."

She wasn't looking at Amaya.

Not only did the instructors of this course have absolutely no business trying to make a movie, but it was quite the event, trying to find an example for the class that had a good representation of their very different views on what this entertainment should be. They settled on a historical entertainment, but one with a very personal story of a colony, recently annexed into the Radchaai empire, and the officers in charge there, their struggles for power against each other, their alliances and romances, betrayals and sacrifices, with some historical perspective that wasn't even too boring, and even a heroic special appearance by the Lord of the Radch herself, Anaander Mianaai, just when things seemed most dire in for the very clear heroes of the colony in an epic space battle.

Plenty of cultural insights, political intrigue, AI ships on the edge of going crazy, awkward close-ups of gloved hands, sassy tea drinking, and, finally, after all that...explosions galore!

Yes, there was popcorn for everyone to enjoy with their own individual bowls, and plenty of tea.

TOO much tea, really.Although one of the teachers would point out that there was no such thing as too much tea.

Well, Wayne thought, by the time they came around to the end of the entertainment, that was...a movie.

Seemed a whole lot of fuss about nothing, if you asked him, and he couldn't help but notice that all those spaceships and lasers seemed to be makin' an awful lot of sound, what with being out in space and what have you, but fucked if he knew anything about that.

When they ping in! Asking them WTF you just watched is a perfectly valid question, too.

Seivarden wasn't sure about what to make of this class, but hopefully they would do better than her previous one.

Amaya also had no idea what to make of this class, but she did know she felt weirdly excited about it, figuring it was going to be a good time whether it was successful or whether it was a horrible, horrible mess. It had a sense of adventure to it, in a way, and so she couldn't wait to see just where it might end up.

When she pings in!

Tisarwat was already a bit over the moon with the fact that Amaya had suggested she TA for this class in the first place (Seivarden suggesting it was no big deal, because that just made sense, but it coming from Amaya!), and then Amaya had to go and make an appeal to her expertise on the subject matter (which was literally just existing, but okay, Tisarwat) to the whole class?

This class was going to be the most amazing thing ever...

...she thought, up until they actually got to the 'good example' entertainment, which just turned out to be one of those awful Anaander Mianaai savior propeganda films, and she was neither impressed or particularly pleased, but she was super awkward about because ugh.

AT LEAST THERE WAS TEA.

"Good to have you as a TA again, kiddo," Seivarden said, grinning. "What did you think of the entertainment? I quite like it."

There was a few seconds where Tisarwat had to keep her face under perfect control, or else she'd have given Seivarden the most whithering of course you did sort of look known to Radchkind, but she, thankfully, had far more control than to let that slip.

And met Seivarden with a smile. "It was very well chosen," she said, carefully hedging around offering any actual personal opinions about it. "A classic plot and good action, so I can see how you and Amaya could agree on it as a good example. I thought the ship's captain's performance was especially good, too; I've seen her in a few other entertainments; she definitely gave this role her all."

"I thought you'd like it," Seivarden said, having expected more enthusiasm. Maybe there was something about Amaya not having looked at her enough.

Yeah, it was funny how seeing someone who'd hijacked your brain as a bid for revenge and power portrayed as a great, valliant hero of the people could really take the wind out of you, especially when you couldn't even mention it because even you thought that person was a great, valliant hero of the people up until the moment she highjacked your brain as a bid for revenge and power.

Still, Tisarwat tried to keep her smile bright. "You've definitely given the class a high bar to work towards," she said, and then laughed a little, which came easier when she focused on the class at hand instead of the example they'd watched. "Which should be interesting, with this group."

"It should be interesting, yes. And I promise I won't let Amaya turn it into an action movie. She really does like spaceship battles."

Seivarden grinned.

"I am very excited to see what she had planned for doing the special effects on those battles," said Tisarwat, who would be excited even to see Amaya eat breakfast. Or brush her hair. Or breathe...

"There will be explosions," Seivarden said. "Lots of them. We watch entertainments quite often, but I usually have to rewatch them later to get the actual plot."

Thank you all for participating in our wholly self-serving sense of dumb amusement.

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How to Make a Radchaai Entertainment, Friday

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